砂漠のJeffire

Jeffirean Stories

Sunday, April 10, 2005

Today was quite a bad day.

It began with a queue for my breakfast (yes, veg bee hoon) in which I tried to divert with a bend to prevent blockage of access of the pathway, only for others to jump the queue. This was in spite of my mother being right in front of the queue. I did not want to jump the queue at all. In the end, I was fed up and my mother bought my breakfast for me by ordering straight from the front even after she had finished her purchase. Am I wrong in this case?

Then it escalated with the traffic jam leading to the cemetery. Yes, it's Qing Ming (should I attach the word 'festival' here?). While the hot sun was bearable, the long stretch of the traffic jam was torturous. Even public transport on the bus was not spared. We spent an hour on the road into the cemetery, just for the sake of burning joss sticks, hell bank notes, paper clothes, accessories, offering fruits, tea, cigarettes and food in front of a tombstone bearing the picture of my grandfather. Frankly, I think the entire idea of burning this and that was an ingenious money making idea of some religious person in our far far away ancestors. What irks me isn't the exhorbitant amount of money you pay for such things, it is the burning that irks me. The air is already so bad, why make it worse with all the burning? I guess the offering of food is barely acceptable because eventually somebody gets to eat it (or maybe some animal, if you throw it away). Imagine if we could help the poor and the starved people with all these offerings...

My brother rebutted my view saying that these are all part of the tradition we inherited. Without this tradition, life here would probably be quite similar to the other side of the world. I guess that's life. We cannot just throw away our traditions for the sake of helping others.

The other thing that is bugging me is the people who dial in to book the budget airlines. They are so "budget" that whatever lowest price I have on offer isn't fair to them. I don't understand why they have to argue so much just for a savings of some ten to thirty dollars for a SHORT HOLIDAY overseas. Man, if you don't go for that SHORT HOLIDAY, you can save definitely more than that. Plus most people have already taken an airplane before, did they ever remember there is an additional charge known as "airport and airline taxes"? Were they so naive to believe that you can take a flight under $20? Didn't our telecommunications companies teach us the art of reading fine print?

I guess at this rate I am going to quit because I really don't want to argue with people for such a small amount of money. It's not as if they cannot check the price on the internet. They are just too lazy to learn.

The same thing applies to most of the people around. We are just too lazy to learn new things, even if by acquiring the new skill, we will enjoy much more convenience. We find learning troublesome. I too, felt that learning was troublesome at times for many little things in life. "We can just get somebody to do it." Yet, this is what I hate most, having to depend on other people. This provides me the thirst for learning (although usually I learn things that are pretty petty to most people, since they always prefer to get someone else to do it for them).

This is also why I never believe any claim/opinion 100%, although there are times I don't bother to check out whether a 70% belief is a good bet or not. That's the dangerous part I have to risk. As much as I want to try and learn, I cannot possibly try and learn everything. Sometimes I have to learn by hearsay from the news, from the people around me, and so on. Sometimes such hearsay is erroroneous or probably one-sided to the point that it becomes unfair to the other parties involved.

It's good if you learn to depend less on people and on real facts and experience, rather than just hearsay or opinions forced on you. Your brain is not there to store others' trash.

Bored and grumpy
jeffire

Acknowledged my existence at
2:15 PM